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A listener note, this episode contains references to extreme violence.

It may not be suitable for all audiences.

It's the night of April 24th, 1915, in the harbor near Istanbul,

capital of the Ottoman Empire.

A small steamship labors through the dark and choppy waters.

Sitting on deck, 39-year-old priest Gregory's Balakian grimaces as the deck pitches

in another way crashes into the boat. A bookish young man beside him has a

queasy look and suddenly doubles up, leaning forward to vomit.

Gregory's lays a gentle hand on the man's back. He knows it's not sea sickness that made the other

man ill. It's fear. Gregory's is one of nine men under guard on the deck of the steamship.

All of them were taken from their beds by police in the middle of the night and dragged through

the streets to this boat. Why they've been taken and where they are going is a mystery,

but they're all terrified of what lays ahead. The wave breaks over the ship's vows and drenches

the prisoners in the filthy water of the harbor. The priests' robes are soaked in his thick beard

plastered against his face. Gregory's wife's eyes blinking away the saltwater.

Over the sound of the waves and the steamship's sputtering engine,

he can hear snickering. At the back of the boat, under a small covered area of deck,

a group of armed police officers mock the drenched and shivering prisoners.

Gregory's looks away, and out over the rough waters ahead to the land on the other side of the

...